Well, I’ve been feeling :puke since late last night. Honestly, I was up until 6 AM because my stomach was doing knots and I couldn’t have slumber sweep me away. It didn’t help that I had stayed in bed until noon the day before….:sleepy I gotta get back to normal hours.

At any rate, Mike gave me The Matrix Reloaded as requested as a late birthday present (speaking of late birthday’s – my silence towards other’s birthday’s is only because of other’s silence twoards mine). I had seen the movie back in June so it wasn’t like I was unaware what happened…

But come on, folks… you should know me. Well, maybe you don’t. I happen to be deaf and use a device to help me hear — but most conversations are tough on me. So I depend on captions with TV and the like.

What does this have to do with Re-Woah-ded? It’s time for my delayed review on the film now that i understand just WTF was going on (not to say I didn’t through watching the movie with just the images on screen).

I look at this movie and I watch it and after dropping all the rehetoric — “It’s about choice”, “Cause and effect”, “It’s understanding that choice and why you made it” and all the other stuff — I find the film’s aim to be about Faith. Undying faith.

How did I jump to this conclusion? Neo being ridiculed by the Architect for having hope. The fact that Morpheus is at a cross roads (“I have lived a dream and now that dream is gone from me.”), and how much the people of Zion and even the machines must believe in Neo — or believe in themselves for that matter — in order to survive the coming onslaught from the Machines.

There’s the love story that you see in this film which is faith in a bond between two people (sidenote – the scene with the cave and Neo making it with Trinity could have been edited out and re-shot with just the two of them in bed in the warm afterglow. That might have moved the movie along faster).

I don’t know, maybe I am missing something here — maybe I just enjoy the movie enough to not care to see the contradictions that the critics are talking about… I see this as a film of faith. As will Revolutions end up being.

Keanu Reeves has said the movies are about “Birth, Life and Death” which scares me a bit because I don’t want to see Neo get killed off to save everyone else. I want to see everyone else saved somehow with Neo leading the way…..

Oh well, so much as for that.

I got my writing assignment back from Herr Fisher and need to work on that sometime soon. I don’t know when I will however. Sorta discouraged and sort of just blah right now with writing — though this entry came off my mind/fingers pretty well. We’ll see what happens.

Some people in the world will never have to experience the nuisance of a muscle pull or will barely notice it. Others will never have to go through the aches of a broken limb and the difficulties that transpire because of it. Some will never meet someone with Downs Syndrome in person or perchance will never see someone who is wheelchair bound – if you can believe that.

Some people will go through life never having limped around for weeks because of a sprained ankle. Some people will never know how demoralizing it is to go through the world in a wheelchair when certain places in the world do not consider you a person. Some people will never know how it feels to have muscles fail on you not from exertion but because of injury…

Some will go most of there lives without being in the hospital for more than a couple of hours to see a birth. While others won’t even comprehend or try to understand the limitations that people have and the difficulties these people have going through life.

Blind. Deaf. Amputee. Arthritis. Those are just some basic things that can limit someone…

The whole catch to this is trying to understand these people and the problems they face. Most of you — and I am assuming about the reader base — will never have to know some of these problems and I’m glad to know it. Others know it full well. Some can comprehend, some can’t. Some won’t even try and I pity them…. Others think they know it but demoralize in there attempts to help.

Here’s hoping you never have to go through some of the shit I am right now — struggling to do basic things, struggling to make my life feel normal (which it isn’t). Here’s hoping you can comprehend the difficulties that others face… And that you’ll know how to act (and not avoid, or look away) when faced with problems from others or even yourself.

Have you ever come across someone you can reach but can’t and yet want to do something to show them that you have interest, or are committed to them… Or maybe you’ve heard of someone who took an extra step on there own terms to reach the one they care about? Something that surprised or awed their spouse.

I was thinking back to a friend I had on ICQ a few years ago — a girl named Jayne — telling me about her boyfriend. Now, Jayne was deaf and had been that way for a long time… It would seem that not only did her boyfriend have interest in her but he went out of his way in order to make contact with her: He learned sign language specifically so he could just talk to her. I don’t mean he was already in with the girl – I mean he did it just to start talking.

And from what I recall, the two of them ended up married.

That’s just an example of doing something major for someone else. Of course, everyone is going to react differently to different things and that means there is no RIGHT answer to doing something like this… But is there anything that someone has done for you that has shown them going out of there way to do it? Or what would you do to go out of your way for someone else, just to show them you are keenly interested in them?

OK, this is one of those entries where I would like to hear the readers thoughts and comments on this… that’s what the little “COMMENT” link is for :tongue

I’m writing this entry through Notepad right now because I’m not able to access my web site and update it — damn Digital Zones, fix the fucking thing already! (UPDATE — 8:41 PM as I write this and they are STILL down!
UPDATE 2 — 5:57 Tuesday — FINALLY back up and running )

I’m not feeling so great right now because my chest feels like it’s exploding… Every time I make progress with moving on, I regress a few hours later because of one thing or another. Hmphf, go figure.

I didn’t update things yesterday (insert shocked expression here) because I was waiting for something – anything – online and instead of that happening, I took some allergy medicine after I started feeling very ill and was stoned/out by 10 PM. Seeing I’ve been getting up extremely early and not getting to sleep until 3 lately, it probably was a good thing that I hit the sheets a bit early.

Yesterday I spent the early part of the day sunning myself at the neighborhood pool (that’s telling you how bad the condition of my own pool/porch are) and got righteously burnt with grotesque burn lines from my tank top to prove it. Something tells me that I am going to have to start remembering to use tanning oil :p .

On the way back from the pool I started wondering about some people that were part of my past and if I should bring them up here on the site — knowing that the Search Engines will end up crawling this page and their names will be indexed and they will be able to find this page (them or their relatives ) and realize someone who they may or may not remember was speaking about them and may or may not want to hear from me in the first place.

This is sort of a collective Where Are They Now but without the glory and gifts for those who take part in the program.

Let’s start with the one who lived closest to me who disappeared when 1) she graduated and 2) her mom left her step dad who still lives down the block from me: Lisa LaCasse. Lisa and me were in the same school from 5th grade onward and the last memory that shines through it all is me being a dick and giving her a “body glove” without thinking about her having whip-lash (senior year of HS). If it makes you feel any better, Lisa, I had a neck operation last year and I went through the same hell you experienced. It’s also worth bringing up that there were plenty of rumors (ok, not so much rumors as your sister and her friends screaming it at me when I rode down the block one time) that you had a crush on me at one point or another — it was probably for the best that nothing ever materialized with that because A) I was a coward at the time and B) I was insecure and both affected how I dealt with girls I met.

Next girl who I need to bring up is someone who I admittedly had an interest in during HS at one point but things got torn apart after we moved up from 11th grade — Jen Wertenberger (which I probably spelled wrong . I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Jen since — I can’t even remember. I did see her friends at Target one time and thought she might be with them but I didn’t see her if she was. Jen was a good friend and I was a smart ass and a dick when I was hanging out with her, and the same insecure coward I talked about above.

Now, the next name on the list is one that my friends hear one time or another usually when I confess my past and I am arguing with myself whether to mention her here or not… Ok, I’ll do it: Jill Clawser. There, I said it… Someone lock me up! I was so obsessed with Jill during 10th grade and much of HS but I was so scared to step forward and so insecure to tell her how I felt… Probably for the best, of course, everything happens for a reason or so I once was told by a very wise person. Jill dropped out from HS her senior year, I saw her a few times at Spencer’s Gifts and one time at Target on a passing chance but then – nothing. I had a web page up in my Pictures section asking “Where are they now” and her aunt came across the picture — ma’am, if you find this, I was sort of terrified someone actually responded to the inquiry about Jill and I didn’t know how to tell you that I can’t hear so well so I couldn’t use the phone and call her if you got her number.

There’s someone else I was close to online that has disappeared entirely because I know her life went in a different direction than mine and was always a good bit different than mine, she was someone I needed in my life as my friend in a very trying time in my life (right after I went deaf) and I value her being there for me till this day. Tiffany O’Neal of Jackson, Mississippi. Me and Tiff used to talk on AOL and later on AOL IM for hours every morning before she went to school… I got to know her and her friends that she lived with, Jill Brown and Thomas Hood. I’m wondering what-up with all of you? Last thing I heard from Jill was that Tiffany had entered the Navy? Maybe, maybe not… I can’t be certain. It was so long ago….

Memories…. from the corner of my mind….

Of course I could post about other people in here that I used to be interested in or friends with but it’s for the best that I don’t. Besides, this feels like I have been rambling for hours even though it might have been only 10 minutes. I’m much calmer than I was when I started this thing.

I’m really getting antsy though — I want access to my web site back so I can get this update up!

Oh yeah, kiddies, I’m getting Mike’s kick ass computer system as he is getting a new machine any day/hour/minute/second now…. I’ve cleaned out most of my files/pictures/movies/applications on this system so far and am ready to just format the hard drive and re-install XP before I venture off into my new machine….

* Time entry was written

Well, my day was mostly uneventful and I will get to that in a minute but I am having some trouble collecting my thoughts here…

*John rummages around his brain and tries his best to collect his thoughts*

OK, I think I found a writing concept for this journal entry that works — I should start at the beginning and go from there. The beginning is a good place to start, right?

I woke up this morning with a partial plan of action – I had to look into a job with a Dry Cleaner a few hundred feet from my house. I went there around lunchtime and I was basically told I needed to call someone to inquire about part time work with their company.

“Call” being the word that struck me out from that job.

So I am getting extremely frustrated right now with looking for a job – it seems like everything would either put me into a pointless job or would just brush me off because I am not a common member of society. I don’t hear great, I’m deaf, I’m not normal, I’m not right, I’m strange, move on soldier – move on.

I don’t even know if I should go into confused for sure…

Disturbed? Why am I disturbed? Well, lets just put it this way – the nation has turned blindly loyal to Herr Bush and his Bushshit regime, vowing that Dubya must be supported because “We are at war.”

Correction, my Fellow Americans, we are at “Police Action” seeing the United States Congress never issued a declaration of War on the sovereign nation of Iraq.

Iraq is supposed to have weapons of mass destruction and all these bad bad things and at the same time — the nation is being bombed to shit and they don’t use them to get the invaders? What’s the logic behind that? Maybe, just maybe, things were — GASP! — destroyed? Maybe, just maybe, this war is not — GASP! — justified? Maybe, just maybe, there’s a bigger threat in this world? Maybe, just maybe, there are problems in the US that won’t be solved with tax cuts? Maybe, just maybe, Dubya is evading them and riding this war straight to the polls?

I’m going to be sick now… :puke